Yet one can’t ignore Pro Tools completely, largely because it’s so firmly entrenched in audio-for-video post-production, scoring and dub stages, and almost all commercial recording studios. Often, composers are asked to provide finished mixes or stems in Pro Tools compatible format, or in some cases, spotted into a Pro Tools session file. Or, they may do part of their composing, programming, or mixing in their personal studio, but then go to a commercial studio or soundstage for orchestral recording or other parts of the production.

Lately I’ve received a barrage of e-mail promotions from Avid (formerly Digidesign), touting their new Pro Tools 9 software. Finding the hype generated more confusion than clarity, I’ve done some research. With Pro Tools 9, Avid has finally taken steps to make their products more compatible and more competitive in the composer’s world, and maybe even help a few composers finally cross over the line to a Pro Tools purchase.

Unlike last year’s NAMM Show, at which Avid showed… benches (!), this year’s promises to be center of a lot of interest. Here’s what it’s all about:

Pro Tools 9
First of all, to review, Pro Tools has always consisted of two distinct product lines: Pro Tools HD, the “high-end” version with TDM hardware, time code and all the other features; and Pro Tools LE, the “junior” version, which included the various M-Box, M-Powered, 003 etc. hardware. Despite being priced competitively with Logic and DP systems, Pro Tools LE always came up short, with puny maximum track count, and—the real deal breaker for composers—no timecode functionality. Additionally, Pro Tools (both versions) has always strictly required the use of their own branded audio hardware. No others need apply.

The new Pro Tools 9 is a continuation of the lower-level line but with several welcome improvements. (They’ve dropped the “LE” designation.) You now get the timecode ruler and functionality. Maximum number of mono or stereo tracks has been increased to 96 (which finally seems like a decent number). And, although they still have a line of hardware interfaces, Pro Tools 9 can now be used with virtually any AU compatible interface regardless of brand—that means your MOTU, RME, Apogee, or other audio input and output boxes are good to go.

They’ve also included a few other features that used to be extra charge, such as “Digi Translator” which lets you convert files to or from other software using OMF or AAF file protocols, and MP3 file conversion and export.

Avid/Digidesign has always put its fullest features and functions in the high-end HD version, and then “dumbed down” the LE version, removing features that they reserved only for the pros who paid the big bucks. The company has long had the policy of offering additional functional features in extra-charge “Toolkit” options. They have dropped most of these, but there’s one still available, the “Complete Production Toolkit 2”, which adds surround audio tracks, greater track count, and other features to make PT 9 basically identical in features to ProTools HD 9. Let’s just say, it’s a step in the right direction. More about in a minute.

Pro Tools 9 HD
Now that I’ve busted them a bit, I have to say in fairness that Pro Tools, and particularly Pro Tools HD, really is a “tool for pros”, with especially powerful features for mixing and editing. I didn’t really get this until I got my own system and got up to speed, but unlike the lower budget good-enough copycat features in the competing software, you really can mix faster and better, edit faster and better, accommodate larger projects with larger numbers of tracks, buses, and inputs and outputs.

Both versions include simple sensible functionality, such as the ability to assign any number of channels all at the same time to any bus, input, output, or automation status. (Anyone who’s slogged through assigning auxes to buses one stinkin’ channel at a time in DP can appreciate this—hello MOTU??) Once you’ve learned your “keyboard command focus” technique, you can plow through a huge editing project quickly, which is why it’s so popular for post-production. Its tools for automated mixing are simply the way that sort of thing ought to work, made even better if you get a chance to use one of their Icon hardware mix controllers.

The new DSP functionality that appeared in Pro Tools 8, “Elastic Time”, is head and shoulders better than anything that comes with the competition. Mixing larger score projects, which may include multiple stems and surround routing, is really where Pro Tools HD shines and the others run out of capability. And mixing in Pro Tools HD simply sounds great, whether “in the box” or with a board. I’ve heard engineers argue about whether it’s TDM or other aspects that make it sound good, but it’s obvious that Avid (and other third-party developers as well) have really taken the sound of it very seriously.

It should be noted, too, that Pro Tools phone tech support is exactly what support should be for a product that one uses to make a living: it costs money, you get to talk to someone who’s trained, and there’s less waiting on hold (or busy signals). It’s easier to find out and then get back to work. Doesn’t it seem fair to pay for something like that, and wouldn’t you offer to do that with the other companies, if they would just be professional about it? I know I would.

One other interesting thing: Pro Tools HD 9 still must be purchased with some sort of hardware system (or as an upgrade for owners of such systems), but once it’s authorized on your iLok, it can also be installed and will run on any computer (such as a laptop) with any brand native-type audio hardware, or no hardware at all. For me that definitely gets a “hmmm…!”

Pro Tools Native
The e-mail blurb on this came through a few weeks ago, then seems to have gotten lost in all the other hype, but this could definitely be of interest to composers. This is actually a hardware package, an interface with a PCI Express card, and also comes with Pro Tools HD 9 software. It includes all the features, large track count, surround, etc., only lacking compatibility with TDM plug-ins.

It’s not exactly cheap at a bit under $6,000 (depending upon hardware interface choices), but starts to look better if you compare it to the five-figure price of some HD TDM systems. And if you’re into plug-ins, native (RTAS) plug-ins are widely available and often of very high quality. Many custom plug-in packages are available both in native and TDM, but the native versions are often less costly. All of this could better put it in the affordability range for working composers who have shied away up until now.

How is it for composers?
To make a long story short, I don’t work as a composer or MIDI programmer, so I don’t have firsthand experience with all the features that a composer would value. I do know that as of version 8, they put in many new advanced features for professional composers, and some composers are using it quite successfully. For more information on that, I would suggest posing your questions in the COMMENTS below. Several SCOREcasters are Pro Tools gurus and I’m sure would be more than happy to chime in with opinions.

Full function: the most cost-effective way to go
If you’ve always thought it would come in handy to have Pro Tools, but it’s just too darn expensive, and you don’t want to put up with limited feature sets, I’ve saved the best for last:

1. First, buy Pro Tools 9 software alone for $600.
2. Then, purchase the “Complete Production Toolkit 2” upgrade for $2000. (Stop choking; yes I know that stuff should come with it, but, hey, it’s Pro Tools.) This gives you all of the features of HD: large track count, surround mixing, all the extra mix functionality, only excluding TDM.

You can use this on your Mac Pro with whatever audio hardware you already have. Fully functional professional Pro Tools, for mid-$2000’s. Couldn’t do that before, could you?

Credit & caveat
I want to thank local Avid rep Jon Connolly for bringing me up to speed on all this. If you visit NAMM, go say hi to him at booth #6700. I just want to mention, at this point all of this is new product information, and he said that he was trying to make sure he had all his facts and details straight. If this is something that’s of interest to you, the dealers (at least the good ones that care about professional users) should be getting all the info on this as well, so check with one of them if you have further questions.

You do go out of your way to patronize truly authoritative pro-audio dealers, don’t you? It’s not always about the last dime. Okay, I’m biting my tongue, ouch!

Stay tuned for more articles, columns, video and more from the NAMM Show floor… and I hope to see you at the show!

So, now that you are off the phone and someone is on his or her way, it’s time to think about just how to interact for the best possible results. This is where you will be called on to put on your “producer” hat. Let’s talk about what that entails.

Producers In Different Music Types

Most of us are aware of the job of producer, or at least that most professional music projects require one. In the case of pop album artists, the producer is often someone different than the artist, a specialist who may have many years of experience and credits with a variety of performers. As the overall guide and leader of a project, the producer starts at the beginning with an artist with some sort of raw talent, and sees the recording project all the way to the successful delivery of a finished master recording. Along the way, he or she is called to be a scheduler, accountant, arranger, songwriter or writing partner, guide to the technical details of the studio process, psychologist and counselor, negotiator, liaison with the client (record company, etc.) supervisor of the artists and musicians who may perform, player/programmer, overseer of mixing, and (hopefully) all-round highly skilled musician with the ability and experience to see the project through to its completed stage.

Like I said, in the record industry, that person is often a hired specialist, separate from the artist. In the score music business, that person is generally … YOU, the composer.

What are some of the issues you’ll need to keep your eyes and ears on as a guest musician performs on your score? Some examples:

Being Prepared

Obviously you’ll start with some idea of how long you want the musician to work, and how many cues you want played. (This has a lot to do with budget, of course.) In order to make the best use of time, you want to make sure that you have well-copied, legible music written out. Even if you intend to record an improvised part, a simple chart with bar numbers, sections indicated, and chord changes, will help everybody navigate. If you’re not sure about your copyist skills, it’s worth asking a friend to help or at least proofread. One of the most unnecessary and disastrous time wasters is for a musician to try to make sense out of a part that is illegible, poorly formatted, or contains mistakes.

Don’t just assume that, since your sequencing program has a notation printing function, that it will automatically come out good enough. I have yet to see software automatically format the chart in the best professional way; some hands-on manipulating always makes it better. If you’re not sure what real professional copying is supposed to look like, that’s a topic that might be worth looking for at a local school of music. Just because copying now is almost always done with software rather than pen and ink, doesn’t mean that it’s an obsolete skill — formatting and layout make a big difference. Or, like I said, get some help.

How Long Will It Take?

Once your musicians are on the clock, you’ll want to make the most efficient use of time possible. Ahead of time, you might want to plan out how many minutes of music, or how many cues, you would like to get accomplished each hour. For orchestral recording, the music union has guidelines of how many minutes of music should be recorded per hour, so that at least gives a general notion to start with. It takes some experience to learn to set realistic goals with this sort of thing, so how do you get started? Just dive in, and take meticulous notes, and you’ll learn. If things are moving more quickly than you expect, then great; if they’re going slower than you hoped, try to figure out why. Are the charts playable? Are they neatly copied? Are they in the comfortable range of the instrument? And is this particular player capable of doing what you were hoping? Figuring out how to assess all these factors is part of the learning process.

Take notes and keep records! One producer/composer I work with has over 30 years experience in recording the best players and singers, but to this day he still carefully writes down in a database exactly what happened and how long it took with each musician’s name and with each project. There’s no way everything can always be perfectly predictable, but the more you do it, the better you’ll have a sense of what to expect, and as your knowledge increases you’ll be able to confidently tackle bigger projects.

Judging Performance Quality: When Is It Good Enough?

From my chair as engineer, over the years I’ve observed a lot of producers, and made my own (private) judgments. I’ve seen some be simply too picky, redoing little things when it was already good enough, which can drain the energy and enthusiasm out of musicians. Others (perhaps a bit intimidated by the process) might leave things a little more sloppy than necessary. It’s okay to ask for a retake if you think it can or must be a better performance. Often a savvy and helpful musician will say “I think I can do that better; how about saving that and then giving me another chance?” And especially with improvising, you might want to save more than one choice, and pick or comp later. Today with digital recording, there are basically infinite numbers of tracks. But (maybe from my past experience with analog tape) I never think it’s worthwhile to save garbage. Judge as you go along; why wait to sort through tons of stuff later?

Don’t forget, there such a thing as musician fatigue. Both the chops and the brain get tired, and it’s standard practice to give a 10-minute break each hour. And at some point every musician will be “cooked” for the day. Especially with a passage that might be difficult, even the finest musician might say, “I have one or two of these in me; make sure you get it recorded well!” Never embarrass yourself by having to admit that the perfect take was distorted or you forgot to hit “save”. (Too much to think about to produce and also mind the technicalities of recording? Let me tell you about a full-time highly skilled professional specialist called a Recording Engineer…)

Singers and Vocals

Although it’s somewhat less likely for a composer to use a singer on a score than in other types of music, it’s often done, and worthy of special mention. There’s something very intimate about the act of singing into a microphone. It seems especially emotional, and singers wear their hearts on their sleeves. It really takes a bit of a psychologist to get the best performance out of anybody, but especially a singer. Don’t forget, one of the most important things you can do is dish out praise, even when you’re not quite sure it’s deserved. You don’t want to come across like a phony-baloney, but you do want to convince performers that you’re there for them, and create an environment where they will feel safe doing their best and giving their all.

Even singers who read well (and not all do) have an element of improvising in expressive performance. Don’t be so hung up on your previously imagined ideas, or the way you would sing it if you could, that you fail to recognize something unexpected that might be great. One time I was there (keeping my mouth shut) while one of the most powerful producers in the business, a name you’d recognize immediately, reduced a fine singer to tears by rejecting everything he did, and instead singing his own version into the talkback mic over and over. Even though that man has written some of the best pop songs ever, I lost respect for him, because of his poor people skills in that situation. Keep your ears wide open, and don’t forget that one of the reasons you’ve hired great musicians or singers is to collaborate with them, and to get their best ideas for your music.

Cutting Your Losses / Heroic Saves

Okay, sometimes it’s just not happening. I once watched a composer valiantly trying to get the right kind of loping easy country feel on a fiddle melody. One after another, several players took a stab at it, were politely thanked (and paid), and then, after they left, I was told to erase their parts while he frantically phoned the next one. If this happens, yes, you’ll take a bit of a bath, but you’ll also learn something, and it won’t be your last time ever producing a soloist or having money to spend.

Of course we’ve got a lot of tools in our computers these days that can help turn a marginal performance into an acceptable one, and maybe even a great one. As a matter of principle, I hate Autotune, but it’s a devil we all live with these days, put to use cleaning up performances both ordinary and even superlative. For example, a good studio singer can usually get a track in two or three passes — the first is for reading and learning, and then the emotion kicks in and you better have the machine in record. Then if you say, “That’s great but the last two notes were flat”, then they start thinking too much and lose the spark. Better to just tune it up a bit. (Yes, I’ve gone over to the dark side, with the rest of you!)

Likewise, digital editing and even quantizing of rhythmic parts are possible in almost all the major software packages. But, if you’re on a deadline, hopefully you won’t have to spend all night cleaning a part that should have been done right to start with!

How To Learn

One of the best ways to get an idea of what it’s like to work with studio musicians, either in a studio or home setting, is to get a chance to watch someone else do it. This is where it comes in handy to be in touch with other working composers — ask around and see if someone will let you be a “fly on the wall” in one of their sessions. Or, better yet, find some way to help: set up person, copyist, make tea, etc.

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, a good organization that offers some of these kinds of observing and mentoring experiences is the Society of Composers and Lyricists. Their “Mentor Program” offers young composers a chance to sit in on sessions with working composers, observe, and ask questions.

By fortunate coincidence, the annual meeting of the SCL is coming up very soon, Wednesday evening October 6, 2010, in Hollywood. See the website for more details. For those attending, the price of admission will be credited towards annual dues if you sign up, and there is a discount rate for students. And you’re likely to meet at least one SCOREcaster there. Don’t miss it!

You may be aware that I am a strong advocate and fan of all the fantastic professional musicians, instrumentalists and singers that I’m fortunate to work with. Here in Southern California there really is a wealth of the “best of the best”, on all kinds of instruments, in all kinds of styles. If you are working on a score and can’t find a way to get at least one guest “pro” musician to record on it, then you’re missing out on a big chance to make something better than you could ever do on your own, no matter who you are. Two heads really are better than one. Or how about three? Four? A dozen?

No matter where you are or how far along in your career you might be, one of the most important tools you can develop is your own personal contact list of musicians. Let’s get started by figuring out what you’re going to require for a particular project. Which instrument(s) do you need? Are good music reading skills important to you? Certainly, a good reader can help move things quickly in the studio, and there are always deadlines. On the other hand, every once in a while I encounter a musician who doesn’t read well, but brings such a compelling personality to their playing that they deserve a place at the mic. (I must admit I’m biased towards good readers, and I know players who can read absolute “fly s**t” in tempo, on click, and make it sing.)

(If you, as a composer, are insecure about writing for orchestral instruments, but are serious about growing in your profession, there are college or adult-school classes in many communities that will help brush up your skills. In LA take a look at UCLA Extension, where I taught for a dozen years. The instructors there are working pros who know how it’s done in the real world.)

What about improvising? That depends on your style of music. In some cases improvisation is completely irrelevant, and in others it can absolutely make your score a success. I remember when I first worked with score composers; we’d record a musician, and the composer would say something like, “Just play the blues here.” I’d think, “Wait a minute, doesn’t that make the musician the composer or co-composer?” But I learned that’s absolutely accepted, and there are so many musicians with good improvisational skills who are more than happy to make that contribution to a score.

The well-known composer Thomas Newman, when speaking about his scores for feature films, never hesitates to mention the contributions of his team of improvising musicians, which are some of the best in the world. Does that mean they compose the score for him? Of course not; he provides the structure, guidance, and decisions about timing, melody, and mood, and he “produces” the performances (more about that to come). His unmistakable stamp is all over every score he does, no matter how much improvisation is involved. (On the occasion that a musician does substantially compose or co-compose, though, he’s generous to give credit.)

We got into a discussion at the SCO picnic about string players, as one woman there had a background as a concert and orchestral violinist. It’s interesting to me, the difference between a “violinist” and a “fiddle player”, both equally respectable. There are certainly situations in score music where you would want one or the other, but it would be a big mistake to get the wrong one! In LA there are violinists with technique rivaling that of Perlman or Heifetz, but who couldn’t play “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” if it wasn’t written out. I think of a fiddle player more as someone who can improvise and play by ear, be it rock, jazz, or country style. The rarest are those few who can do it all: read well, play with confidence when the red light goes on, and improvise in an interesting way. When you hear an improvising violinist on major film and television scores, the list of persons who that might be is probably smaller than the number of fingers on your right hand.

Of course, as you work with various musicians you’ll find out about their personalities and job skills. Do they show up on time with a positive attitude, ready to give 100% effort? Just like a cross-section of any profession, there are a few who don’t, but I find that they are rarely invited back for a second chance.

One group of musicians I’d like to give special mention to is those in the older age range. Some time ago, as a young engineer working for an equally young composer, I was interested to see he often brought in players who might be thought of as senior citizens. I quickly found out that these are some of the best musicians available, and they brought a level of wisdom and experience that were great assets to the music and the composer. They never came across as big-shots or felt they were too good to be there, and the composer was smart to rely on their lifetime of experience. The respect flowed in both directions.

“So,” the question was asked at the SCO hang, “how do I get someone like that to want to record on my little score?” The answer: it never hurts to ask! Even the most skilled players aren’t busy all the time, and many think it’s important to encourage up-and-coming composers and nurture talented folks who will go on to bigger and better things. Even though it’s appropriate to offer a respectful amount of money, they don’t always cost an arm and a leg.

Many composers use the same musicians on every project they do, and their sound becomes an integral part of the composer’s sound. Composers I work with often have their “team” that they couldn’t get along without. When your music gets noticed and your career blossoms, in part because of the contributions of terrific musicians, don’t forget to give them credit and your gratitude (and repeat business).

How do you find the right musicians for you? That’s one of the nice things about participating in SCOREcast Online, as well as organizations like the Society of Composers and Lyricists and other professional groups. Ask around, particularly toward folks with a bit more experience in the score business, and you’re sure to find a wealth of recommendations.

What if you’re not in a city where there are good recording musicians available? These days, the Internet is breaking down the barriers of distance. You can get players from all over the world to play for you using digital file transfers. Many players (in this area, at least) have personal studios set up and ready to record and deliver music on request, remotely (mixers, too!).

So, it’s time to start working on your “cast list”, talent on whom you will rely as you move forward in your career. There’s a feast of wonderful possibilities.

In a coming article, I will write about the production process and how to skillfully manage the talents of those great musicians (and yourself, as well) to get the best possible results for your scores.

One composer I know says every bone and joint in her body hurts all the time. She is saving up for a hydraulic lifter for her keyboard and computer workstation, so she can vary her position, working standing up as well as seated. Another I know has intense shoulder pain, and can’t raise his arm above shoulder level. He doesn’t want his clients to know, because he’s afraid they will think he can’t do the work.

The first person I ever heard of who injured his hands trying to become a better musician was the composer Robert Schumann. In trying to develop increased finger independence at the piano, he famously immobilized his fourth fingers with a length of string and ended up crippling his hands. It’s said that this motivated him to turn to composition.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t the last person that ever hurt himself creating music. It’s estimated that as many as a third of symphony and studio musicians will at some point in their career deal with pain or injuries to the hands. It’s very common to deny or conceal these problems, for fear of getting a reputation for being disabled and losing work.

In today’s world the job of composer is not a haven from such injuries. Intensive computer use, combined with the pressures of huge workloads and deadlines, can lead to serious problems if one isn’t careful. Many fail to recognize the problem until it is too late.

DO I HAVE CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME?

I recently discussed this situation with Laura Stewart, president of Wellspring Therapy of Glendale. In the 20 years she has been an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist, she has gained a reputation as one of the foremost authorities on treatment and recovery from injuries of the hand. She stresses that the absolute most important thing about dealing with this sort of injury is to prevent it from happening in the first place; we’ll get to that in a moment.

But what if you’re already feeling a twinge, how can you find out more about it? The news media, in simplifying things for mass consumption, have led us to believe that anything that goes wrong with the hands must be carpal tunnel syndrome. But in reality, there are a number of different things that can go wrong with your hands, wrists, arms and shoulders. Most common are carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, and osteoarthritis. Here’s a simple way to tell the difference:

Carpal tunnel syndrome: Between the bones of your wrist, there are several tiny tunnels through which tendons and nerves must pass. Repetition of a motion with hands or fingers can cause swelling of the tendons that make the fingers move, constricting the nerves that share the carpal tunnel. Symptoms of this include numbness, tingling, pain that resembles a burning feeling in the hands, and eventual weakness of hands and fingers.

If this is your problem, you may feel numbness and tingling on the inside half of your hand, that is the thumb, index, middle, and the inside half of your ring finger. Why? Because the nerves that lead to those figures go through the carpal tunnel. Nerves that go to other parts of the hand go through other tunnels in the wrist.

Tendinitis: Tendinitis is inflammation of the tendons in the hand, wrist, and forearm that attach muscles to the bones. Symptoms are primarily pain and decrease in movement; this problem seldom causes numbness.

Osteoarthritis: This form of arthritis (not to be confused with rheumatoid arthritis, which is not included in this discussion) is often associated with aging, but can happen to people of any age. It is caused by the deterioration of the cartilage between the bones, the pad surfaces that cushion their intersections. Of the three types of injury, this type can most easily be diagnosed using X-rays.

STEERING CLEAR OF DANGER

Repetitive motion injuries can be serious and very painful, and can even threaten your career. There are ways to avoid these problems, or mitigate them if you’re already having some trouble, but it often can be difficult. It often takes very substantial changes in work habits, physical fitness, and even attitudes towards the work you do — real life changes.

High pressure and tight deadlines aren’t the only reason one can develop this sort of problem. Composers and other creative people are often very highly motivated, even to the point of being obsessive. It’s a rush and a thrill when a good piece of music takes shape, and one can lose track of the hours fine-tuning and tweaking the sounds with the mouse and keyboard. Later you finally come up for air and then, “Ouch!” The pain and other symptoms are often delayed.

The body wasn’t designed to do the same small repetitive tasks for an extended time, and the equipment isn’t always designed to help the body in the best way. Here are few tips on how to work smart and prevent injuries; they may look familiar, but are worth thinking about again:

Good ergonomics and posture: You must be able to reach your computer keyboard and mouse without straining. A good keyboard workstation should have a computer keyboard tray that is adjustable in its height and angle. As you sit up straight and reach for the keys, your elbows should not be bent at an angle tighter than 90 degrees. That is, make sure your chair is high enough and your keyboard is low enough that you’re not reaching up to the keyboard or mouse. Try to always hold your wrists straight and even, in a neutral position, never arched nor sunk down nor twisted sideways. Try to relax your shoulders; tension can make them rise up toward your ears. And make sure your screen is high enough that you don’t have to hunch or slump — a good rule of thumb: sit up straight in front of your screen; the top one-fourth of its area should be at about eye level and three-fourths below.

Reality check: What do we do about a workstation that also has a MIDI controller keyboard? For good playing technique the MIDI keys need to be at a proper height as well; a grand piano usually has its key tops at approximately 27- 28 in. Some people are more comfortable with a tray for the computer keyboard that is down low underneath the piano keys, perhaps on a sliding track, and some place the computer keyboard on top of the MIDI keys. It may also work to have the computer keyboard and mouse off to one side. Some trial and error may be necessary. But watch out for extremes — I know one composer who had his Macintosh keyboard down at the very far left-hand end of the 88-key controller, and the track ball to the right at the opposite end. His work position had him splayed out like he was on a cross, a real recipe for back, shoulder, and hand pain. Ow!

It’s also important to get a good adjustable chair that is the right size for you. Make sure it has good lumbar (lower back) support, and if there are armrests they should be adjusted low enough that they don’t make you hunch your shoulders or get in the way when you play music. Even though various wrist pads are popular, most physical therapist strongly advise that you don’t rest your wrists or arms while you type or work the mouse; it’s important that the large muscles of the arms and shoulders are used to support the hands and fingers, and that you have some flexibility to move your body as you work.

Keep fit. A sedentary lifestyle can lead you to getting hurt much more easily. Think of yourself as a “hand athlete” — if you did that much continual work with your legs, such as running, you would understand the need for good fitness throughout your body. Therapists often recommend cardiovascular exercise and weight training (although if you are already hurting don’t just start lifting weights without guidance!). And, as with any athletic workout, a start with a warm-up and stretches, including your hands, is always wise.

Keep your tools sharp. Just as it takes many more pounds of force to cut up a chicken with a dull knife than with a sharp one, computer tools that are stiff or worn out can make your work harder than it needs to be. The tiny movements that you do over and over with your hands should be made as easy as possible for them. Little bits add up! I recently sat down at a composer’s workstation and found the track ball to be so rough and stiff that it practically took two hands to move it. A good-quality trackball should glide with only a feather-light touch. Sometimes they need cleaning or lubrication or just replacing. Your fingers will thank you.

Take breaks and break up your tasks. When we get obsessed, or on a deadline, it’s easy to lose track of time. Taking regular breaks, even if it’s just to get up and stretch and walk around the room for five minutes, is essential. And if you’ve got more than one job on your to-do list, it’s better to do a little bit of one and then a little bit of the next rather than to power through on just one task.

TOOLS THAT CAN HELP

There are lots of “ergonomic” keyboards and other accessories out there. Different people get good results from different things. Here are a few accessories that many find useful:

Kensington Turbo Mouse: This is a large (2″) trackball. Its broad size helps you keep your hand in more of a flat position, which can help avoid pain. Also, the four or more buttons (depending upon the model) can be programmed to common actions such as click-hold (drag), double-click, etc. (Avoid the wireless model.) Many people find that a traditional mouse can cause stress and tension in their arms and shoulders, due to the fact that a lot of work you do dragging things around on the screen involves holding down the button and so your arm is continually tensed. Instead, you can momentarily click a click-hold button, then lightly roll the ball to make the edit or other drag, and then click again to release. I’m often surprised by people who don’t bother to program the buttons and get accustomed to them — give it a try; once you get the hang of it you will find that it helps a lot.

Kinesis programmable USB foot switch (Kinesis-Ergo.com): The 3 foot pedals can be programmed to duplicate any button on your mouse or keyboard. If your hands are tired of all the clicking this can help. (It can also come in handy as a “record” foot switch for punching yourself in and out.)

Voice-recognition software: The best one I have found for Macintosh is Dictate from MacSpeech/Nuance. It’s not perfect but there’s not much else to choose from. (This article was written using it.) If you use a Windows machine, Dragon Naturally-Speaking is said to be quite good. Unfortunately these are only useful for writing tasks such as word-processing and e-mail; they’re not much help in most music software.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

The book to get: This may well be the most important part of this article. If you’re having pain or other problems with your hands, or just want to learn more so that you can avoid such problems, an essential book is “Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User’s Guide” by Emil Pascarelli, M.D., and Deborah Quilter. This contains an absolute wealth of information about hand physiology, ergonomics, managing pain, and how to deal with medical help if you need it.

Doctors and physical therapists: Not all physicians are aware of or trained in repetitive hand injuries, and you may have to work to get your insurance to cover it. In the Los Angeles area, there are physical therapy clinics that specialize in this type of rehabilitation; some research will help you find one that might work for you.

RSI support groups: Many cities have support groups that meet regularly, in public libraries or other places, and offer informed speakers, suggested resources, and folks to commiserate with. An internet search may find resources in your community.

Before I get started, it’s a good time to remind you that it’s always a good idea to ask your clients what their delivery requirements are. If the producer or director can’t tell you directly, they will refer you to a post production mixer or technician who will have all the answers.

In a past article, I’ve gone over standard digital file issues, such as sample rate and bit depth. Review if needed. Of course you will be delivering finished mixes (or sometimes “stems”), not raw unmixed instrument tracks.

Since most postproduction work is done using ProTools, you will probably be asked to deliver in either a ProTools “session” file or at least something that’s easily imported into ProTools. Some composers are already equipped with ProTools software and hardware, but I wouldn’t say most are. So you might say, “Well, if I have to turn in something in ProTools, then how about if I just get a little cheap ProTools LE system?” But there’s a hitch — unlike its (expensive!) big brother ProTools HD, the LE systems do not support timecode, unless you pay extra for “post-production toolkit” features.

Let’s pause for a moment and review what our intent is here: you have prepared each piece of music to go at exactly a certain spot in the film, usually defined by a timecode starting number. Just because you are viewing the video in your DAW software (Logic, DP, etc.) doesn’t necessarily mean that the music will automatically go to the right place on the dubstage; someone needs to place it there in their DAW software, i.e. ProTools. An important distinction is that when you are in “composing work mode” you will have each piece of music in a separate file or chunk, but for the dub mix they will all need to be in one common “session” file.

For several years I’ve worked with composer Greg Edmonson on the show King of the Hill (Fox TV), and after the composing process in Logic, part of my job was to put all the mixes into ProTools for delivery. Here in brief is my workflow for that:

Each cue was mixed in Logic and then exported as a 24-bit 48K WAV file (either one interleaved stereo file or two mono files will work equally well, but stay tuned for one small hitch in this process). Then in ProTools HD those files were imported onto tracks, one at a time, and “spotted” to the right start location by timecode. It’s pretty common as I mix for the file I create to not start at bar 1 beat 1, but before, to accommodate instruments which may attack slightly early — so it’s important to keep a list of timecode starts for each file, which may be a different number than the music downbeat.

I usually use two stereo tracks (or sets of tracks), and alternate odd-numbered and even-numbered cues. This allows for any cues that may overlap each other at the start/end. Sometimes there is an additional track as well for source cues, which may be overlength.

No ProTools?
So that’s pretty basic, but as I mentioned before, what if you don’t have a timecode version of ProTools? That’s when it pays to really know your clients, and figure out how to accommodate their needs. Some of my composer clients are able to simply deliver a folder of stereo files, with a list of timecode start numbers. There may be an editor who is willing to take a few minutes to drop the music in the right places. On a higher-budget gig that might actually be an official Music Editor, a professional who can be a tremendous help to a composer in many ways. Sadly, they are rare in lower-budget projects.

My colleague Randy Knaub writes about the use of OMF and AAF file formats, and I’ll leave it to him to explain this. This allows you to use some other DAW software to create a file which should be compatible with ProTools. I have just a couple of reservations about this: if you do deliver this way then it’s important to have someone “on the premises” check the work and make sure everything has ended up in the right place. I would avoid any edits, punch-ins, fades, and automation. Those are not appropriate in a score delivery anyway. Also, in the ProTools world, the ability to open and accommodate these files is a paid option (and somewhat expensive depending on your point of view — another nice Digi/Avid wallet zinger), so check in advance to see whether your client can accommodate this.

Time stamping
One thing that will help your music to go in exactly the right place is to use files that are time stamped. Most DAW apps can create and accommodate file time stamping. Then in ProTools the file can be easily spotted automatically to the intended location, avoiding the tedium of typing in all the numbers.

Digital Performer automatically and reliably adds time stamping to any WAV file, when your project file is set to the correct time start number and you record in real time. However, annoyingly, Logic will not. (Yes, I know they say it will, but I found that sometimes it correctly timestamps a WAV file and sometimes it doesn’t, with no predictable rhyme or reason. It’s a bug that has existed since Logic 6 or before; I’ve found this with more than one client under a variety of circumstances. In repeated inquiries I have found Logic tech support and local reps had no clue why and didn’t seem much interested. Ideas?)

File types NOT to use
In previous articles I discussed file types, but it’s worth mentioning again that some computer compatible file types are not appropriate for professional production work: MP3 and AAC. These “lossy” file types are intentionally “shrunk” in order to make them easier to e-mail or transfer quickly through the Internet, but this is done by intentionally throwing away part of the sound data.

If you need to deliver over the Internet, this is a good place to use FTP or an iDisk; don’t compromise the music you’ve worked hard on by then compressing it to e-mail it. If you’re placing a piece of music downloaded from a service like iTunes, try to get an original copy CD instead, and extract an AIFF file from that.

It really makes a substantial difference in how good things sound. Maybe it’s a hassle, but if you are going to be committed to working hard to making your music sound great, then why not have those elements as good as they can be as well?

This may be a situation in which you educate your client as well. Suppose they ask you to send an MP3, or maybe send you one of some source music. On little speakers on a computer it probably doesn’t sound any different. But I promise you on the loudspeakers in a dubstage, or after broadcast processing, the difference in richness and punch will be substantial. Plus if there needs to be editing or EQ then an uncompressed file will respond better to that, with less deterioration. Like blowing up a photograph really big—do you see lots of blurry mushy pixels or is it detailed and focused even at large magnification?

Fight the bad
For a variety of reasons, I hear a lot of music that doesn’t sound as good as I think it could or should, especially on television, sorry to say it. I know there are a lot of challenges.

We’ve all heard, and probably said, “It’s good enough for…”. Fill in the blank — For TV. For no money. For an impossible deadline. For those @#$%s who made me stay up all night to do five rewrites.

My humble suggestion: Fight the temptation. If you insist on quality, from the smallest detail like avoiding MP3s, to everything else, all the way to the top of your professional and personal “food chain”, you will feel better about your work, and others will notice. Isn’t that how you want to be?

LES BROCKMANN is a Los Angeles-based recording engineer and score mixer with over 20 years experience in television music, from NORTHERN EXPOSURE (CBS) to KING OF THE HILL (Fox), feature films including the award-winning documentary GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB (HBO) and the cult howler TRAIL OF THE SCREAMING FOREHEAD (Larry Blamire, dir.), and video games UNCHARTED 1 & 2 (Sony/Naughty Dog). You can find his SCOREcast bio (and links to his other sites) here.

Just one mic?
I’ve often been asked, by a composer with a personal studio, what microphone they might buy to record “everything” they need to. To engineers, it’s a nice luxury to work in a studio or scoring stage with a well-equipped microphone closet. Part of our expertise is to know and understand the subtle differences, the sonic signatures of fine microphones, and to choose which instruments are best complemented by which mics.

But of course, many folks haven’t got the budget for lots of microphones. So here’s my advice: an early investment by any aspiring composer should be at least one high quality microphone. I would go with a “condenser” model (the type that needs phantom power).

Condenser mics are sub-categorized into large and small diameter diaphragm, and both have certain advantages. A large-diaphragm mic will probably sound best on a singer, brass, or many kinds of solo instruments. Small-diaphragm mics are often favored on acoustic guitar, percussion, or in stereo pairs if you’ve got a group of instruments to mic at a bit more distance. (But we are talking about just one here-?) If in doubt, I think I would go with a large-diaphragm — it may not be perfect for everything but they are pretty versatile.

Unlike computers and digital audio gear, a high quality microphone, like most good analog gear, can be considered an investment that will last you your whole career. Buy a name brand and it will also retain resale value, should you ever need to convert it into cash. I still like the well-known European brands such as Neumann. You can’t go wrong with any of their products. At lower price points they often are cardioid only, rather than having multiple patterns, but that’s fine. Also good are Sennheiser, AKG (although most of their models will have a sound that is less warm; I prefer them on things that are percussive or need to sparkle). Audio-Technica has some decent models at a bit lower price point. There are no low-budget Chinese import mics that I recommend. Expect to spend at least $1000 for a good versatile microphone.

I’ve recently been working with a percussionist who has been recording everything with a modest but decent microphone. On his project, he was about to start recording a singer when we spoke, and I suggested that he rent a nice Neumann U-87; he was thrilled about how much bigger and clearer that sounded. Don’t forget, at least here in the big city, you can rent that sort of thing by the day — I think he paid $30 delivered. That certainly seems worth it, doesn’t it? (Contact me for rental referrals in the LA area.)

Mixing notes
More projects are calling for cinema-type surround music mixes. In order to do this successfully in a personal studio, a full surround monitor system is essential, five speakers plus subwoofer. There’s no way to fake this on a stereo pair of speakers.

Discrete sub track versus “bass management”: The “.1″ in “5.1″ refers to the subwoofer channel. In final dub mixing, with dialog, music, and effects, a mixer will commonly use a discrete sixth audio channel to reinforce big low sounds such as explosions. However, in score mixing, I will (almost) never put low music information on a separate channel. The proper way to set the sub in a music studio is so that it gives your main monitors added low-end response. The music mix tracks, particularly the three in the front, will have full frequency information.

It’s my preference to not put anything of substantial music importance in the rear or surround speakers; some reverb or, in the case of live orchestra, distant microphones, will be sufficient to give you a sense of being enveloped by the sound. Don’t forget, in most theaters and also home environments, the rear speakers are usually small, often badly placed, unaligned, or broken. I wouldn’t put anything back there that I couldn’t live without. You also don’t want any sound to pull the attention of the audience away from the screen — what cinema sound guru Tomlinson Holman calls “the exit sign effect”, as in, you don’t want people to turn and look at the exit sign. The story is in front.

Does “mastering” apply to score mixing?
I’ve recently been reading an excellent book, which I would highly recommend to all professional engineers, “Mastering Audio: The art and the science” by Bob Katz. It’s a real college level course on many fine details of audio mixing and processing, outboard gear usage, digital audio details, etc. The emphasis is on the sort of thing that would apply to album (CD) production, but with some good information about surround, DVD, and sound for picture as well.

One of the topics that he speaks very eloquently about is the “loudness wars” in which excessive compression and peak limiting is used to make music sound “louder”. He explains how and why this almost always makes music sound worse, not only because real good music has a dynamic range, but also because this never results in louder broadcast sound, only increased distortion.

Why should we care in the score business? In music for picture, there isn’t a mastering stage of production; your mastering engineer is your dubstage music mixer. Many composers are of the opinion that it helps somehow to put compression or peak limiting on their mix; some even have plug-ins to do this as part of their DAW template. I disagree. There’s no substitute or shortcut for mixing to an even and carefully considered balance, and of course checking with the dialog track turned on. More info

Mac work
I don’t solicit jobs installing software or building new computers, but occasionally a client asks me to do so. Things can get pretty complicated in putting together all the software that musicians depend on these days; it all has to work together smoothly, or you will have untold grief, as I’m sure we have all experienced.

I was recently reminded, again, of a truth that I will pass on as a public service. If you buy a new Macintosh, and choose to do the setup and software installation yourself, please bear this in mind: do not ever EVER use “Migration Assistant” to bring in settings or documents from your previous machine. This vomits lots of obsolete, incompatible, and potentially destructive preferences, drivers, and other code into the new machine. You’ll never get them out without reformatting the drive and starting over. Even if you think it will save time and money, just say no, do it the hard way. You will be glad you read and remembered this.

More?
I’m always happy to help people navigate the complexities and subtleties of engineering; it’s what I do for a living. What’s on your mind regarding recording and mixing music for the screen? As always questions or comments are welcome here, below, or for more direct professional collaboration I can be reached through my website.

More bits
To start with, here I am wearing my “technical guru” hat. Let’s review some things about digital and computer audio; there’s a new technical trend and product you should be aware of.

You probably know that digital audio, in the files we create and the way in the signals can flow from one piece of equipment to another, can be in a variety of different sample rates (44.1KHz, 48KHz, etc.) and word lengths (usually 24-bit for most professional applications). (If you need a refresher, check my article “Technical Guidelines for Film and TV Scoring — Part 1“.) Recently there has been a lot of talk about “32-bit” and “64-bit” — how does that fit into all of this?

The new Apple Mac Pro computers with Intel Core2 Duo processors and the newest operating system, 10.6 (Snow Leopard) are said to be 64-bit capable. Do they sound even better? No, not necessarily. 32-bit and 64-bit don’t have anything to do with digital audio formatting or fidelity. What this is all about is the ability of any individual software app to access on-board RAM memory.

With 32-bit capability, which is how things have been up until now, an app such as our familiar DAW hosts Digital Performer, Logic, etc., can have a current working file size of up to 4 gigabytes. This includes the amount of memory that is needed for plug-in soft synths, many of which are getting to be pretty substantial memory hogs. This would include, but not limited to, such popular products as Omnisphere, Trillian, Ivory, and the various orchestral library sample players. Maybe you’ve noticed, by the time you get a few of those instantiated, your DAW becomes logy, slower and less responsive, maybe crashy. It’s not just processor power, it’s memory handling.

When clients ask me about buying a computer, a common question is how much RAM memory to equip it with? The computers can hold more and more, but if the DAW can only be filled up to 4 GB then the practical guidelines have been maybe 8 GB total. But that’s not the case anymore; on a new machine I would recommend 16 GB or more — I think very shortly you are going to be able to put that to good use.

In order to run more soft synths, there have been work-arounds that some composers have used. A common and practical one is Plogue Bidule. This app runs in the background along with your DAW, talks to it (sound and MIDI) via ReWire, and can act as host for plug-in soft synths in a variety of formats. The instruments connect to and can be programmed in your DAW software but are not limited by how much memory an individual app can access, at least up to the 4 GB limit. So effectively you can double your capacity, with some soft synths in your DAW and some in Plogue.

But now we are entering the era of 64-bit memory accessing, so this limitation is going to go away. With 64-bit, a processor can address up to 16 exabytes of memory (that’s over 16 billion gigabytes)! Now the DAWs, sample players, and other apps have to be re-written in order to take advantage of this. Some already have: Logic 9.1 is 64-bit ready, and (some) SpectraSonics synths. Others can be expected to join the party certainly within the next year or so.

Meanwhile there is another “background”-type host which looks to be an even better bet than Plogue: Vienna Ensemble Pro. This was built for their excellent Vienna Orchestra sample sets, but can work with other brand plug-ins as well, and the advantage is that it comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions — you can run both at the same time, hosting whichever format your individual sample instruments might support. Composer Joel Goodman, recently installed these and reports that his performance with Digital Performer 7.1 has been generally smooth and trouble free (well … we are talking software here!). (Special thanks to Joel who brought me up to speed on this stuff.)

More people
Now let’s talk about something that will make your music even more exciting than the best software instruments, I promise.

How many of you would be willing to take your entire fee from a gig, maybe even several gigs, and invest it in the newest greatest computer software or hardware upgrade? “Yeah, I can see that, it keeps getting better and you gotta keep up, right?”

Now, how many of you would be willing to take that same pile of money and invest it in a room full of expert studio musicians, for one day? Or maybe just a few of them?

Not so easy, is it? “My clients don’t really care. There’s no budget for it, or time. I’m barely making ends meet as it is.”

I’ve observed something from my engineer’s chair: Everybody’s got about the same computer tools, and you need them of course. But the typical one-man band-in-a-box score is a pretty good way to get more of the same kind of work you already have, but not necessarily to move a career forward.

A couple of examples come to mind: most people are familiar with the composer Michael Giacchino. A couple of years ago at the SCL annual meeting, he told the story of his big break, when he insisted on using a live orchestra to score a video game. Now of course that’s not uncommon — thank you Michael! I don’t think he’ll ever reach for Omnisphere when he wants to pull someone’s heartstrings.

Or, closer to my home: composer Miriam Cutler, whose documentary scores always feature as many live warm human beings playing instruments as she can possibly squeeze in. Often they are recorded one at a time, in her personal studio, and sometimes layered with electronic textures as well, but the net effect is an organic and emotional sound that keeps her in demand in her chosen genre. I know she’ll agree that insisting on live musicians is a big part of what gives her music the magic that clients notice.

Think about it: when you add even one more expert player to your mix, you are doubling the intellectual and creative firepower. And in a city like Los Angeles, there is an incredible wealth of experienced players who have “been there and done that” over and over. They bring not only the ability to play a part in tune and expressively, but help solve dramatic problems, improvise in just the right way for the emotion of a scene, or give an immediate sonic spark that you’d never get out of East-West Quantum Leap even if you worked all night.

If you’re not in Southern California (or just want to stay off the freeway), ask me and I can refer you to amazing musicians with personal studios and high-speed Internet who can work with you anywhere in the world — guitarists in every style from metal to ethnic world sounds, woodwinds and brass players, harp, bass, a pianist with an amazing Bösendorfer piano, some percussionists, fiddle and other strings, kick-ass drummers, even a pretty good mixing engineer . All with experience in major motion picture and television scores.

I have to admit, I’m not a composer and I don’t write the checks. Maybe yet another episode of a reality series is not the time to suddenly splurge on a bunch of live guys (although check out “Lost”); if so then what about the next big pitch demo? You will have to find the right time and place, but I strongly believe it’s worthwhile.

What do you think? I’d be very interested to have composers weigh in with comments about when and if you have worked with expert live players (no matter where you are located), and what your experience was.

Who is your secret weapon (don’t worry we won’t tell), player or players that you couldn’t do a score without? Did you ever try live musicians and then regret it? Did you ever work with a musician who gave you fantastic results that you never would have expected? Did you learn something? Did your clients (or demo targets) care, or notice? Did you get the gig? Would you do it again?

If you are one of those people, congratulations. But what about the rest of us? How can we hope to compete and succeed in their world, maybe even become a bit like that someday? Let’s take a look at a few charismatic successful people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with over the years, and then talk a bit about what we can learn from them.

The first composer I ever worked with in major network TV show scores was Stewart Levin (30-Something, Picket Fences). Before moving into composing, he played keyboards for Dionne Warwick and other entertainers, and so is comfortable around “stars”. Besides being a terrific musician and composer, I was always impressed with how at ease he seemed to be with show producers Ed Zwick, Marshall Herscowitz, and David Kelly — besides music and film, he could talk with them about other things they were interested in, hobbies, families, cars, and so forth. He’s a charmer who always has a joke to tell to break the ice.

Nelson Kole is a bundle of talent, energy, and fun. Is it his New York roots that make his mind go faster than most people I know? He has had music bursting out of him since an early age, particularly in the world of musical theater; he tells of organizing his high school plays as arranger and music director, and this past year he arranged and coached a dance number for Beyoncé and Hugh Jackman in the Academy Awards telecast. One can learn a lot from watching the way he works with a performer, making sure everything is perfect for their individual abilities — song key, range and pacing, and attention to what they can do best and what they might need help with, always with a smile.

Dan Foliart is one of the most experienced and successful television composers (Secret Life of the American Teenager, Home Improvement, the list goes on and on). Much has been written about his shows and scores, but I’d like to mention his dedication to being a leader and mentor for composers. As president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, he has done much to defend the art and business of score music, to shine a light on successful composers and encourage up-and-coming ones, and to provide a sense of community in what is often a solitary profession. In a crowd people gather around him, but he always generously takes the opportunity to introduce folks to each other, and say something positive about each one.

It’s worth mentioning the Society of Composers and Lyricists with a bit more attention. If you are in the Los Angeles or New York area, I can’t recommend this organization highly enough. It’s a resource for composers, lyricists, as well as support professionals such as orchestrators, instrumentalists, mixers and engineers such as myself, even agents and attorneys. Will being a member get you a composing job? Maybe not directly (although perhaps as an assistant), but frequent seminar meetings have included topics such as getting the job, working with directors, musicians, engineers, editors, and software, and even effective networking techniques.

Speaking of which, one more name worth mentioning is Dan Kimpel. I met Dan in an SCL seminar on networking. He is absolutely a powerhouse expert in all things “getting the gig” through effective interaction with all kinds of folks who can help move your career forward. He is a guy who is absolutely overflowing with a million terrific techniques and ideas on how to get yourself noticed in this business in a positive way.

Dan Kimpel has written an excellent book on the subject, which is a “must read” for all: Networking Strategies for the New Music Business (You may have noticed, I think books are important.) He tells, with far more authority and detail than I could, the right (and wrong) ways to hone the connection skills that are so important in this business.

What can we learn from these bright guys? Clearly it’s important to perfect your chops as a musician, but social skills and interaction play a big part as well. Being at ease around other people comes naturally to some; for others of us it takes practice. One key tip I have learned is that “to be interesting to others, you must be interested in others”. Stewart, Nelson, and both Dans have in common that they are truly interested in and engaged by the people they come in contact with. You can tell they have a passion for what they are doing, and the people they are doing it with.

You might say, “Self-confidence comes easy for those who are successful. But what if I’m not yet at that point?” But almost everybody has had success in at least something. You don’t start out the climb at the top of the mountain. Think about what you have learned so far, and of course never stop looking for more ways to learn, grow, and practice.

And don’t forget, find a way to be a bright light to at least someone in the world. You probably already are.

I know, I’ve been there. In the chair, in front of the speakers. Spent a good part of my life there. I should know. I’m a mixer. (Sorry, went into Dragnet mode there!)
With keyboard, screen, mix controller in front of me, and speakers outside of and behind the computer screen in a nice equilateral triangle with my head and ears, the mix is coming together pretty nicely. Got the harps and guitars panned and strings nicely textured with a good convolution reverb. But now — what about the bass? Why do the notes sound uneven, some booming and some receding? And why does the whole thing sound so much different on my other good living room speakers?

Non-gear
So here we are, it’s December on SCOREcast, and the topic of the month is Gear and Software. I’m not always a contrarian, but I am going to be one right now. Everyone might like to hear what I have to say about the latest microphones, preamps, and software plugins, and I have plenty of ideas about those. But almost every musician I have worked with saves up his or her money and then invests in all kinds of screens, knobs, cables and boxes, but almost nobody has given any investment or attention to the acoustics of the room they’re working in, and how that affects the sound. Does it matter? You bet. Let’s take a look.

Physics 101
We all probably sat through this in school; many musicians get glazed eyes when anything with math in it is mentioned. But it’s pretty simple: start with the fact that sound travels in waves, ranging in length from about 56 feet at 20 Hz on up to 7/10 of an inch at 20K Hz. Right in the middle, at 500 cycles, it’s 2.3 feet. And whenever a sound wave encounters a hard surface, such as the wall behind my mixing position, it bounces off like a rubber ball. Those reflections can interact with the waves coming straight out of the speakers, and either boost or cancel certain frequencies.

Of course music is made up of a wide variety of frequencies blended together, so the net results are complex. But the bottom line is what you hear isn’t necessarily what you get. Maybe the low end of the sound is hard to control and decide on, perhaps midrange sounds such as voices or orchestral instruments lack focus or take more EQ than they should, maybe your speakers don’t have a good deep and detailed stereo image. Maybe your woodwind or acoustic guitar overdub sounds like it was recorded in a bedroom (guess what?—it was!). All of these are ways in which your surroundings can negatively impact what you hear.

Actually there are two main concepts in acoustics that need to be attended to: how the surroundings inside your studio affect the sound of your speakers and of acoustic instruments you may be trying to record (room treatment), and also the issue of controlling sounds that may come in from the outside, which you probably don’t want, or your sound going out to bother the neighbors, which is also probably not ideal (sound isolation).

Getting started
So what can you do about it? The topic is not that complex, but I’m afraid it’s a bit much for just a short article on a web blog, so I’m going to turn this into a book review. I have briefly mentioned it before, but I can’t say enough good things about a simple and extremely well written book: “Acoustic Design for the Home Studio” by Mitch Gallagher. This paperback will set you back less than $20, and it could be the best investment you could make for such modest money.

Gallagher really understands today’s project studio scene. He’s not going to make you wish you could afford a million-dollar custom building job (although don’t we all?), but goes over theory in a clear way and then tells you how to evaluate your present situation, and come up with a plan to improve it. He recommends off-the-shelf acoustic products that are affordable, and tells you how to use them, and also goes into detail about how to use everyday stuff that you may already have to fix up your acoustics for no cost whatsoever, if that’s what you need to do.

My home studio is not perfect yet, but with the aid of Gallagher’s book, I can get started. I have learned how to use the equipment I have to test the frequency response in my workspace, and have found some good alternatives on how to deal with it.

It’s tempting to go with a nice microphone preamp or a new PCI card system to support better plugins. But wouldn’t it feel good to be able to have the confidence that everything you record or mix and deliver sounds just the same everywhere it is played, just as you intended it to?

_____________
LES BROCKMANN is a Los Angeles-based recording engineer and score mixer with over 20 years experience in television music, from NORTHERN EXPOSURE (CBS) to KING OF THE HILL (Fox), feature films including the award-winning documentary GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB (HBO) and the cult howler TRAIL OF THE SCREAMING FOREHEAD (Larry Blamire, dir.), and video games UNCHARTED 1 & 2 (Sony/Naughty Dog). You can find his SCOREcast bio (and links to his other sites) here.

Editor’s Note: In the spirit of December’s theme (Gear and Software), we asked our contributors to weigh in with their Top 3 gear finds and why they like them, and we are bringing them to you in a series that we are calling “My Perfect 3″. Here is an item that Les Brockmann chose, and a short rundown on why he picked it.

Hey SCOREcasters! Okay here you go – - at least one if not three – -

All of our computers, software, and other digital gear are important to us. But of course they become obsolete relatively quickly and have to be replaced; I think of them as a monthly cost of doing business. On the other hand, high quality analog gear, just like a fine musical instrument, is an investment that can last you your whole career.

Royer Microphones
I have gotten great usage from a couple of fantastic ribbon microphones, my matched pair of Royer R-122V mics. (a bit under $6K retail for the matched pair.) Ribbon mics are different from the condenser microphones that many people are familiar with. They don’t have that bright crispness, but are often described as having a “warm” sound. They are wonderful on many orchestral instruments, particularly brass and woodwinds, piano, and sometimes strings. My Royers have a smooth top end, an extremely detailed midange, and robust bass.

What would I not use them on? Vocals, probably, and definitely not on drums. Would I recommend them for the typical composer’s personal studio? Probably not, at least not as a first choice for someone who doesn’t have another mic. They are not so versatile that you would want to put them on everything, they need fussier microphone technique because they are figure-8 pattern as opposed to cardioid, and they are delicate and require careful handling.

But that’s exactly why I like to have them available. Everybody has (or should have) the standard hi-end condenser mics, and so it’s nice to be able to bring something unusual and special to a session. I knew I was onto something when, on a recent studio session featuring flute virtuoso Sheridan Stokes, the venerable LA contractor Joe Soldo told me, “I think that’s the most beautiful and natural sound I have ever heard from him!”

(Disclosure: I have read recently that, if you blog about a certain product, you should reveal if you have had any special treatment from that company. I have an “artist” relationship with Royer, which basically means I bought the mics direct from the company in exchange for them using my name and examples of my work in their advertising. My cost was approximately wholesale, definitely not free. And I was well aware of the quality of their mics before I agreed to this.)

Setting up your studio
First of all you need an appropriate place to listen and work. A deep discussion of room acoustics is too much for this article, but for a fantastic resource check out “Acoustic Design For The Home Studio” by Mitch Gallagher. The physical layout and acoustics of the room that you are working in really do make a substantial difference in whether you can accurately hear what is in your mixes.

To start with, make sure your workstation and speakers are set in a good relation to each other. When you’re mixing, you will need to be directly facing the source of the sound, so your screen, keyboard and mouse, and mixing controller or console (if you have one) can’t be off to one side. Make sure your speakers are exactly at ear level when you’re sitting in your comfortable chair, and that your head and the two speakers form an equilateral triangle. A distance of four to five feet between the speakers and from each speaker to its corresponding ear is usually about right for a personal studio setup. Ergonomics are important; if your arms, hands, shoulders, or back hurt when you work you will never make it through the long career haul, so don’t scrimp on a crummy chair or an awkward reach.

The best way to learn what good mixing really sounds like is to sit right there and listen to a lot of recorded music from a variety of sources, including big-name film scores, as well as pop and classical music. Learn to think about tonal quality and balances; the mix is not the time to think about melody, orchestration, performance, or any other compositional or production details.

Mix delivery
When you are hired to do a score project, you will ultimately need to deliver the finished individual cues in a single mixed track or group of tracks, usually a computer file such as WAV or AIFF. Bear in mind it would never be right to deliver individual “raw” unmixed tracks — it is not the filmmaker’s job to mix your music on the final audio dub mix, just to balance it with all the other sound elements, dialog, effects, etc.

Occasionally you may be asked to separate out a melody track or some other part; this is called a “mix stem”. The reason for this is, suppose in the final dub mix the filmmaker feels that a melody might be conflicting against a dialog line, for example. By having the melody on a separate track, this part can be turned down without having to turn down the entire cue. To prepare this, just make your mix as normal, and then record it twice (from the same start place): first all of the music but with the melody switched off, and then that melody track alone (including its reverb, etc.). When you listen to the two stems tracks together with equal levels it should sound just like you intended the mix. (For more about mix delivery, see my article “Technical Guidelines for Film and TV Scoring — Part 1“.)

Mix chain plug-ins
Recently I mixed a score for client in his studio computer, and afterwards he asked, why had I removed his “mastering plug-ins” from the master faders? He had previously done rough mixes, and his template included a compressor/limiter and an EQ. To start with, I had to explain what “mastering” means to an engineer:

Mastering is common in CD album work, and is a final processing step to make all the cuts on a CD sound consistent, and in particular, solve two problems. The first is that a contemporary album may have a number of different producers and engineers, and so the delivered mixes may vary widely in terms of level and EQ (top end/bottom end, etc.). A mastering engineer will use his tools to even things up and make every song match. However, a score mix is more likely to already be consistent in that respect (same engineer and the composer acting as producer).

The second task in CD mastering is level maximizing, using compression and limiting, in order to make the disc play loud and be “competitive” compared to other CDs. (This is usually demanded by record company people who don’t know much about good sound, or that good music can have dynamics.) Film score mixing is different in this respect — after the music is mixed and delivered then the film has its final “dub” sound mix in which all the sound elements are balanced. I guarantee, the music will NEVER be as loud as the dialog and effects. No matter how much you squash your music mix, that won’t have the slightest effect on making your music sound louder in the film soundtrack, or making your mix sound better balanced.

The filmmaker and the dubbing mixer make the choice of music volume. All pre-processing will get you is to hammer the life out of your music. Think of the dubbing mixer as your “mastering engineer”; he or she can make your music sound its best if you deliver good clean well-balanced mixes. (Tip: If you do intend to use any mix chain plugins, make sure they are bypassed while you are making your mix, or you will be “chasing your tail”, with unintended consequences. And ALWAYS check your mixes with dialog.)

Also, be wary of pre-canned plug-in presets, both as “mastering chain” and in individual instrument channels. A few years back, there was a popular device called a Finalizer, the misuse of which (imho) did a lot to damage perfectly good mixes and deceive studio owners. It had a menu of presets for rock, classical, jazz, techno, etc., which called up a chain of compressors, limiters, and EQs already set to certain parameters. But think about it: is your Rock mix exactly like every other rock mix that anyone ever created? Or, whatever style. The preset settings that might be appropriate for one example of a style are completely inappropriate for another example of similar style. There are simply too many variables that can go into production and mixing.

Plug-in presets are available in all the computer DAWs as well. For example, recent versions of Logic have these sorts of effect chains, in the “Library”. These are intended to take the mystery out of engineering for folks who don’t know much about it. But, watch out! Just like timing a scene or writing for the violin, there’s no excuse for not taking the time to really learn and understand how the tools of recording work, in order to get the most out of them.

In all the skills that go into creating great-sounding and competitive music, the more you know the better it will sound. And, best, your music will improve and you will know exactly why.

The Scoring Stage
When called on to work in a commercial studio or scoring stage I almost always work as a member of a team. As an independent free-lancer, I am hired by the composer, and am the designated “team leader”; I’m in charge of the composer’s technical needs and interfacing with the staff of the studio.

I couldn’t do it without helpers, almost always provided by the stage or studio: setup personnel, an assistant engineer, most likely a recordist/Pro Tools operator. When those guys have their act together, it can really help the session go “like butter”, and a smooth technical experience in the studio is essential to success for the date. Everything has to be planned out in advance, set up perfectly, tested before the downbeat, and there can be no delays for technical problems. The best studios and stages earn their reputation for excellence by providing staff personnel who are uncompromising experts at this.

I also have my “horror story” list of studios where this kind of thing didn’t happen, where not to go back. In the ideal world of projects with nice big budgets, we would always record at top-notch places like Capitol or the studio stages, but that’s not always the case. A part of what I have to offer in helping composers record is my career-long experience in the various studios around LA, what they can do technically and, most importantly, whether their staff “gets it” and understands the world of scoring. Not all of them do. A few years back, on a low-budget film project, we booked a large room over in Burbank for a day of string recording. Because of various delays in setup, we got started almost an hour late. After an extremely tense day of recording, I expressed my disappointment to the manager, who replied, “We’ve been working with Joe Walsh recently — he books 10 a.m., usually shows up at noon, and we like it that way!” (If you want to know which studio, just call me.)

Unless it’s a “live mix” gig (see my SCO article about live recording), most projects go back to the composer’s private digs or mine for mixing, and of course they started there as well with rough mixes, MIDI work, file prep, conversion, etc. That’s when the job for me may be a solitary one in the engineer department. But there are sometimes opportunities for engineer collaboration there as well, as was illustrated recently when I worked on an exciting Disney action-adventure score with composer Greg Edmonson.

Teamwork, Tag-team, and Sending a Sub
It’s incredible how much work a composer has to do in a short amount of time, to meet a deadline on a film score. Burning the candle at both ends is old hat — how about both ends, the middle, several sides…? I take it as my responsibility to be a “safety net” for the composer, and make sure nothing gets missed in all the myriad of technical details that have to be attended to, even (especially) when the composer is sleep-deprived and desperately trying to get it all done on time.

Sometimes I consider the responsible thing to do is to ask someone to help out. If the composer needs an engineer to work both day and night, and I can recommend and train someone to continue with what we’re working on, I may make the suggestion to call in a “fresh horse”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to working hard, but I think the ultimate goal should be for the success of the project (not just the maximum number of hours on my clock).

That situation didn’t come up on this particular project, but a couple of things did that were similar: after several days of work mixes and preparation, Greg and I went into a commercial studio to record strings and brass. In his personal studio, he uses Logic, but Pro Tools is almost always used in public studios, so there is file preparation and conversion needed, from one software to the other and back again, which takes time. The composer didn’t want to wait, the following morning, for tracks to be consolidated and exported from Pro Tools before he could bring them into Logic and start editing them to match the MIDI parts, because of the looming mix delivery deadline.

So I called on my old friend and expert engineer David Appelt. When we finished with strings, he met us at the studio and took away a hard drive copy to another Pro Tools system (mine) and exported string submixes from all 40 cues. By the time we were done with the evening brass date, he came back over and delivered the files. Teamwork!

There are other situations that require sending a good sub. An old buddy, John the studio guitarist, once told me a definition of the free-lancer’s life: “The good news is, I have three gigs this week; the bad news is, they are all Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock!” We all work for more than one client, and sometimes there is a schedule conflict. And, on rare occasions one must call in sick, which happened on this job. I haven’t had anything worse than the sniffles for probably five years or more, but got a little slammed during the mixing process; it was great to have David available to come in and sub a couple of days without missing a beat.

If I have to send a sub, I would never send him in “cold”; I always have a detailed conversation with the other engineer to bring him up to speed on all the technical details he will need to know — software, mixing board, outboard gear, patching, and any personal preferences the composer might take for granted. I’m not such a control freak that I would totally set things up in advance or micro-manage everything. I believe a good experienced engineer works best with his brain fully engaged, and if he has to figure out one or two things or make some setup decisions himself, this can be helpful.

What makes someone a good sub? Two things, plain and sample: one, he has to be reliable, technically and business-wise, that is, he shows up on time and knows how to do the job right. And, second, he doesn’t try to schmooze the client or steal the gig. This isn’t the time to yak about your website or latest big feature. You’d be surprised how some don’t get that part. It’s a small town; ethics and relationships matter.

Collaborating with the Composer
Last but not least, as a mixer I develop a good collaborative relationship with the man or woman who brought me there, the composer.

Because of the time-intensive nature of what we do, a mixer may well be the one professional that has more “face time” with the composer than anyone else on the job, be they studio musicians, orchestrators, whatever. It’s a situation that requires a lot of trust, confidentiality, and discretion. Often a discussion will come up that is more than just whether the guitar or oboe is loud enough — “Do you think this works? Which do you like better? Does that instrument sound in tune?” and so forth.

I have a pretty good background as a musician, with experience in classical, jazz, and pop. I have never played or composed professionally, and have no ambition to do so; I’m truly happy in a supportive role. But as a composer gets to know me, he or she often will find it useful to have a musician to bounce performance questions, production ideas, and other things off of. I would never impose myself when unwanted, or argue. With some clients it’s strictly about the technical business at hand, and I’m fine with that. But I come to work with all my experience and talents available, and feel most useful when I can contribute whatever is necessary to making the project as good as possible.

That’s what it’s all about — when it ends up great everyone shines, and maybe we even get to do it again!

For more information about Les Brockmann, please visit http://lesbrockmann.com/

But – - welcome to the real world – - I realize it doesn’t always work out that way. For reasons of budget and expediency a composer is often called on to record, mix, and submit a finished score on his or her own. As each composer must own the computers and other technical equipment that make our modern music business possible, it’s advantageous to know what to do when you need to, so that you can fend for yourself and compete.

For a dozen years I taught a class at UCLA Extension, in the Film Scoring program, called “Staying in Sync”. It started out being the “time code class” but evolved over the years to being all about digital audio, synchronization and timing issues, and miscellaneous studio tips for composers.

Here are some guidelines, in two categories. For those of you with a bit more experience this may serve as a review, and for others, a good starting checklist.

Sample rate and bit depth

This topic needs to start with a discussion of delivery requirements. In every score project that you are ask to do, there will be specific technical requirements for the format for music delivery. You need to find out what those are from your client; don’t just go with “what ever you usually do”.

Most film and television scores are delivered at a sample rate of 48KHz, at bit depth of 24-bit. This is in contrast to music CD work, which has a sample rate of 44.1K at 16 bit. But, don’t just assume – - ask. Most software can do conversions between all the common sample rates and bit depths, but your product will sound better if you start out in the format of delivery.

I still sometimes hear, 48K sounds better than 44.1. This is a myth that got its start in the early days of digital audio. In the technology of digital audio the difference would theoretically amount to less than one-third octave above 20KHz (beyond the top end of human hearing). In reality today’s digital interfaces often have the same filtering for the two sample rates. However, what does make things sound (a bit) worse, and is a pain in the kiester besides, is sample rate conversion. Who wants to change all those files when you are finally finished and up against your deadline? Just go with the specified rate.

There is one exception to this that isn’t really an exception at all. Besides delivering the score, everyone wants good sounding recordings for the “demo reel CD”. For this you will have to do sample and bit rate conversion, to 44.1-16. Just use the highest quality conversion setting available in your software and it will be fine. You can do this after the deadline has passed and you have some spare time.

What about the high sample rates that some software and hardware supports these days – - 88.1, 96, 176.2, 192? In some cases that may be worth it to a small degree, such as extremely high fidelity orchestral recording. But bear in mind that some aspects of your system may not be compatible with those rates, such as software synths, and you will still have to do a conversion before delivery. Plus, recording at higher rates will consume a ton of hard drive space, like filling a bathtub with a fire hose.

Now for bit depth. 24-bit has become industry standard, superceding 16-bit. You should definitely go with 24-bit. Just set everything that way and leave it. Why? In a nutshell, digital audio becomes cleaner (less distortion) the louder you record, up to 0, where the red light comes on – - whoops, distortion, “sorry, you played great but can we get that once again please?” 24-bit has a wider “sweet spot” where it sounds good, so you don’t have to have everything quite so loud. Also, mixing “in the box”, plugins, etc. all sound better at 24-bit. If your delivery requirements are 16-bit for mixes, make the conversion at the end and you will still have good sound.

Time code

SMPTE time code used to be a complicated big deal – - I taught a whole six-week class on it. Fortunately things have gotten a lot simpler these days.

Let’s review: time code is basically a way of numbering the frames of a film, video, or audio recording. It gives you location information, and allows video and audio to be synchronized together. There are several different formats of time code, based on the number of frames per second of a particular video format, i.e. film or television. Our audio software can work with any type time code, but has to be manually set to the same format as your video.

For a score project, you will typically be supplied with a Quicktime video file, and (you may have to specify this) it should have on the picture a visible box with time code numbers (sometimes called visual time code or window burn). (Linear time code on an audio channel is unnecessary.) It’s customary for the first frame of program picture (not including leader) to be at a time code address of eight frames past 01:00:00:00. The numbers should start ten or more seconds before that, to allow for a preroll, although the software doesn’t really need it. Sometimes the start mark will be in the neighborhood of 2 hours, or greater, such as in a film score that has more than one reel. However, the time code should never start with 00:00:00:00. The very first frame of the video should start with “rolling” numbers, that is, no frozen frame members and then starting after a few seconds. Time code should be continuous and never stop or skip. If (horrors!) they re-cut the video they will have to generate new time code, but the very first frame of program should be the same number it was before.

The frame format and numbering decisions will usually be made by a post-production supervisor or video/film editor, who will use the editing software to stripe continuous time code numbers on the frames. Hopefully they will tell you what the time code format is, or in Quicktime software you can use the “Movie Inspector” under the Windows menu. Make sure your software is set to match.

Besides the various frame rates, there is the issue of drop frame. Two of the most common time code formats are 29.97 drop frame and 29.97 non drop frame. Explaining the distinction between those two would be a fine cure for insomnia, but suffice to say they are not the same; again, find out what format is on your video and set the software or machine to match.

I should also mention that there’s a new format of time code, 23.976, which is there to accommodate new HD video formats. I know that Digital Performer 6 can work with those, but DP5 cannot – - you may have to upgrade.

Once the video is imported into your composing software there are two steps: first you must set the software so that its time code numbers equal what is on the video screen. In Pro Tools this is called “spotting”; in DP it is “set movie start”. Other apps have similar settings. Make the numbers match the very first number in the video. Then, second, set bar 1 beat 1 of your cue to the time code number in which you want it to start.

In a professional organization of which I’m a member, another score mixer sent out promos for a seminar in which he was going to teach composers what they needed to know about score engineering. I’m sure he had many wise things to say, but my eye was caught by his assertion that “there is a particular time code format that every composer should insist on”. In case this has caused any misconceptions, let me clear this up – - under no circumstances that I have ever seen did a composer have the choice of what type of time code will be used. Someone else makes that choice. It’s no big deal – - just find out what type is being used.

More to come
I’ve got some things to say about score mixing, both technical and “artistic”, but looks like this is about enough for this time. I want to cover some things about plug-ins, and of course I won’t forget “stems mixing”, so check back with me for Part 2.